Sheba

Sheba (SHarEd understanding about sustainable BAltic Sea governance) is a research application to Helsinki Challenge 2016.

Registration

This is the information asked and provided for the registration phase.

Team leader (name, title, organization, telephone number, e-mail):

• Jouni Tuomisto, National Institute for Health and Welfare, +358295246305 jouni tuomisto thl fi

Contact person (name, title, organization, telephone number, e-mail) *

• Jouni Tuomisto, National Institute for Health and Welfare, +358295246305 jouni tuomisto thl fi

Other team members (name, title, organization, e-mail) *

• Päivi Haapasaari, Universty of Helsinki, paivi haapasaari helsinki fi
• Sakari Kuikka, University of Helsinki, sakari kuikka helsinki fi
• Arja Asikainen, National Institute for Health and Welfare, arja asikainen thl fi

Helsinki Challenge creates solutions to grand challenges and for the future well being. More info about the competition themes can be found [1]

Choose the theme

• Sustainable Planet ←--#: . Yes --Jouni (talk) 07:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)
• Urban Future ⇤--#: . No --Jouni (talk) 07:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: attack)
• People in Change ←--#: . Yes --Jouni (talk) 07:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)

Shortly describe the challenge your team is about to solve (max 200-250 characters with spaces):

• We will improve evidence-based decision support for the governance of Baltic Sea sustainability. The results are useful for other sea areas, and the methods developed and tested produce shared understanding and support complex decision situations.

Submission

Instructions

We are meeting at a time of immense challenges to sustainable development. United Nations has introduced the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to change our world. The objective of the Agenda is to build a better future for all of us. These goals are universal and belong to us all: countries, cities, companies, schools, you and me. This is our common agenda.

To solve grand challenges we need multidisciplinary approaches, broad-minded thinking and bold boundary crossings. The science based competition and idea accelerator, Helsinki Challenge, is a platform for collaboration: science and arts communities, business, decision makers, public sector and other actors of the society – we all need to join the movement to make the goals for sustainable development reality. Through the Helsinki Challenge collaboration we can create solutions for grand challenges and for the future well-being – together!

Helsinki Challenge 2016-2017 themes are: Sustainable Planet, People in Change and Urban Future. For more information kindly check challenge.helsinki.fi

Kindly submit the competition entry by November 15th, 2016.

Criteria

Helsinki Challenge competition entries will be evaluated through the following criteria

Science-based

As a science-based competition, all of the Helsinki Challenge teams need to have a firm link with academic work and practices. Ideally, the solution and the team are founded on a firm research-base (i.e. the team’s work is based on their own research), and the solution provides academic research with new insights and as such, feeds back to academia.

Impact

Impact is the main driving force of Helsinki Challenge: both the teams and the university are trying to find new ways of maximising the impact of research through the process. Impact is essentially about sustainable change: how to measure it and evaluate the team’s progression towards a better society. It can be measured both by the scale or the depth of the change the team is aspiring towards.

Solution-focused

Ultimately, solution is a medium for achieving impact. By this definition the successful Helsinki Challenge teams must be passionately aimed at building their solution and ways to achieve results effectively. The solution must be feasible, although it can be research-focused and abstract.

Creativity

The team’s ability to reframe the problem in new ways, to connect new partnerships and collaborations in new unforeseen contexts and finding new approaches for solutionizing are categories through which the jury can measure the team’s creativity.

Originality

Originality of the solution requires understanding of past and current iterations. This demands benchmarking. Originality can be measured by asking how and why the new solution excels existing solutions.

Describe the Challenge

Submitted 15 Nov 2016 at 23.12.

Choose the theme *

• Sustainable Planet ←--#: . Yes --Jouni (talk) 13:54, 15 November 2016 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)
• Urban Future ⇤--#: . No --Jouni (talk) 13:54, 15 November 2016 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: attack)
• People in Change ←--#: . Yes --Jouni (talk) 13:54, 15 November 2016 (UTC) (type: truth; paradigms: science: defence)

Shortly describe the challenge your team is about to solve. Explicate also your team’s proposed solution to the challenge, the scientific methods to be employed, and any multidisciplinary collaboration the project involves. Justify the challenge by showing why it is an important challenge for science and society, and how your team’s solution is unique and innovative one. (max 2500 characters with spaces) *

Challenge: The Baltic Sea is eutrophicated and highly polluted with persistent environmental pollutants. Also, the sustainability of the fishing activities is an international concern. The importance of adopting an ecosystem-based approach for marine management is currently highlighted in both science and marine policies. In principle, the approach implies that all key processes and activities that affect marine enviroments are taken into account in management. In practice, understanding and guidelines for implementing the ecosystem approach are missing. The challenge of SHEBA is to create shared understanding on what ecosystem-based management practically means; how the approach can be utilised for creating knowledge and policy links between different problems of the sea, and how the approach can be implemented in the Baltic Sea.

Proposed solution: 1) Create an open web-workspace (see Science below) and 2) organize a series of workshops with stakeholder groups, experts, and decision makers internationally, for supporting shared understanding on how ecosystem based marine management can be implemented in practice in the Baltic Sea. The final output is a roadmap/guidelines for implementing ecosystem-based management in the Baltic Sea. We anticipate that these principles and tools will facilitate decisions by increasing shared understanding among participants, i.e. understanding about issues, values, and reasons for disagreements.

Scientific methods employed: We will use Bayesian belief networks to summarise scientific information and open assessment (http://en.opasnet.org/w/Open_assessment) and Opasnet web-workspace to synthesise and disseminate stakeholder contributions. We will also use several collaboration and co-creation methods with stakeholders and decision makers. We will use knowledge crystals (http://en.opasnet.org/w/Knowledge_crystal) as the technical format for information, because it allows scientific critique, produces open linked data, and facilitates reuse of information in new contexts.

Multidisciplinary collaboration: The team has expertise in environmental health, environmental sciences, social sciences, impact assessment, Bayesian modelling, decision support, citizens science, and participatory methods, among other things. The team has successfully worked together before on complex decision support cases and co-creation projects. They also have existing contacts to many important stakeholders.

Collaboration and Impact

Shortly describe the project’s intended collaboration inside and outside the academia. Firstly, explain the working of the team and its division of responsibilities, and depict also any scientific collaboration inside your host institution as well as between your team and other higher education institutions. Secondly, describe how the project interacts with the society, and represent any actual or planned cooperation with companies, the public and the third sector, and the general public. Justify your alleged solution by showing how it would change the world. Lastly, describe the funding plan of the project, list actual and planned funding resources, and explain your plans for using the prize money.(max 2500 characters with spaces) *

Collaboration inside academia and division of tasks: University of Helsinki (UH) is responsible for developing Bayesian and decision models about the case and substance expertise on Baltic issues. National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) is responsible for maintenance and development of the web-workspace and implementation of the knowledge work. Open Knowledge Finland (OKF) is responsible for organising stakeholder meetings and co-creation of governance plans. All partners participate in procuding information for the web-workspace.

Collaboration outside academia and interactions with society: This project will actively collaborate with stakeholders and decision makers of Baltic Sea. In addition, we will disseminate the results and practices to other potential users, such as the Finnish Environment Institute or the ministries. Our aim is to produce awareness and increase the use of the web-workspace in societal decision making.

How the project would change the world: The project is based on a unique set of principles, practices, and web tools all promoting knowledge production. Although many principles such as openness or scientific critique are far from new, novel workspaces allow their implementation much more efficiently than ever before. We anticipate that the case study of this project will serve as a proof of concept of innovative new approach to decision support. In addition, the web tools developed will be directly freely applicable in new projects and sustainability challenges. Effective reuse of methods and knowledge will make decision support more effective.

Funding plan for the full duration 1.6.2017-31.12.2019: UH: 140 000 € and 12 person-months. THL: 130 000 € and 11 person-months (75 % overhead, 57 % indirect salary cost). OKF: 105 000 €, 14 person-months and 20000 for organising stakeholder events. Each partner's budject includes 5000 € for travel costs.

Science

All entries in the Helsinki Challenge competition should represent solid science. Describe your and the team’s most significant scientific achievements, and how they relate to the current Helsinki Challenge project. (max 2500 characters with spaces)

Scientific achievements and their relation to the work: The project is based on previous work done by the partners. UH has provided a high number of decision models for the Baltic Sea management. These include both fisheries management and oil spill risk analysis models. (Haapasaari et al. 2015. A proactive approach for maritime safety policy making for the Gulf of Finland: seeking best practices. Marine Policy 60: 107-118.) In our current project GOHERR we develop ecosystem based management to Baltic salmon and herring fisheries.

THL has developed a web-workspace Opasnet for open assessments and expert contributions. That will now be developed also for stakeholder participation. Open assessments were developed in THL to improve openness and participation in environmental health assessments. In addition, THL coordinates the project Yhtäköyttä, which has produced a set of principles for knowledge work in decision support. The principles improve the use and re-use of scientific information.

We have recently identified several principles for information work and how to utilize research knowledge for decision making more efficiently. (Tuomisto et al, Yhteiskuntapolitiikka 1: 67-76, 2014; Tuomisto et al., Yhtäköyttä-hankkeen loppuraportti. Manuscript. http://fi.opasnet.org/fi/Yhtäköyttä-hankkeen_loppuraportti; Pohjola 2013. THL Research 105/2013). These have successfully been applied in local assessments and also in a Baltic setting in a BONUS project GOHERR involving UH and THL.

UH is an expert in Baltic Sea management issues, especially sustainable fisheries and oil spills. UH has published more than twenty articles about Bayesian assessments of Baltic decision situations such as oil spills. There has been three PhD theses focusing on oil spill risk analysis.

OKF is a non-governmental organisation promoting open science, citizen science, and evidence-based decision making. It has large experience on stakeholder work and co-creation projects. Open Knowledge Finland's Open Science Working Group is the leading multidisciplinary civil society level community of early career researchers in Finland. The loose but dynamic network reaches some 600 supporters of open science all over Finland. The groups recent activities span across a variety of issues, such as cost of academic publishing related activism, research ethics & integrity, digital humanities and open citizen science.

Introduce the team

Team leader (name, title, organization, telephone number, e-mail) *

• Päivi Haapasaari, Ph.D., University of Helsinki, paivi haapasaari helsinki fi

Contact person (name, title, organization, telephone number, e-mail) *

• Arja Asikainen, Ph.D., National Institute for Health and Welfare, +358295246469 arja asikainen thl fi

Team member responsible for communication (name, title, organization, telephone number, e-mail) *

• Arja Asikainen, Ph.D., National Institute for Health and Welfare, +358295246469 arja asikainen thl fi

Other team members (name, title, organization, e-mail) *

• Sakari Kuikka, prof., University of Helsinki, sakari kuikka helsinki fi
• Suvi Ignatius, M.Soc.Sci, University of Helsinki, suvi ignatius helsinki fi
• Jouni Tuomisto, Dr.Med.Sci, docent, National Institute for Health and Welfare, +358295246305 jouni tuomisto thl fi
• Heidi Laine, M.Soc.Sci., Open Knowledge Finland, heidi k laine gmail com

See also

• BONUS BalticAPP: Wellbeing from the Baltic Sea – applications combining natural science and economics